Love and Adultery in "The Lady with The Dog" by Anton Chekhov

“In Oranda they sat for a while on a bench, not far from the church, silent and looking at the sea, at their feet. It was barely visible Yalta in the morning mist. On the top of the mountains there were white clouds that were motionless, nothing stirred the foliage of the trees, the sound of the cicada was heard, and from below the noise of the sea spoke of peace and of that eternal dream that awaits us all. The same noise would make the sea below, when neither Yalta nor Oranda existed yet; the same indifferent noise will continue when we no longer exist. And this permanence, this complete indifference to life and death in each one of us is the basis of our eternal salvation, of the incessant movement of life on earth, of the incessant perfection.”

It shows us an image of an intervention full of magic and love. In addition, it fulfills its main objective, it is not a naive vision but it is tinged with the internal vacuum of Gurov after having added one more name to his list of conquests.

The time in Yalta continues keeps running, while more encounters between these two individuals continue to happen. But, in the history we see that the time comes when Gurov unfortunately has to let it go suffering his sad departure. Gurov without a doubt decides to follow and leaves towards the city of S., which is the place where Anna lives with her husband. Gurov, driven by the need to see her and have such amorous encounters, does everything possible to locate her, but she reproaches him for the potential of scandal but Anna promises to go to see him in Moscow. Being a promise from Anna, she decides Go to Moscow to see him and fulfill his promise.

Once again, they could meet secretly in different anonymous hotels, always taking care that they were hotels where neither her husband nor his family could find out. We know that Gurov continues to help his son by answering his school curiosities, Anna's life must also follow the same monotonous rhythm that led her to surrender to Gurov. Even knowing that they are building a relationship without any future, they will continue to see each other, lying to their husbands, and hiding, traveling to find each other, who knows until when. They love each other, they need each other, they want not to have to hide, they want to be together, they talk about the future, and they do not even imagine they stop seeing each other again. They had never loved like this before, but deep down they both know that the most difficult thing has just begun. In one of his meetings the following happens:

“At the moment when, approaching her, he took her by the shoulders to say something affectionate, some joke, looked at himself in the mirror. His head was beginning to whiten and it seemed odd to him that the last years could have aged him and made him so bad. The warm shoulders on which his hands rested shuddered. She felt pity for that life, still so beautiful, and yet so close to withering, no doubt as her own. Why did he love him so much? She had always seemed to women other than she really was. It was not their true person they loved, but another, created by their imagination and anxiously sought, however, discovered the error, still loved. Not a single one had been happy with him. With the passage of time he knew them and said goodbye to them without ever having loved. Now only, when he began to whiten her hair, did he feel for the first time in his life a true love”.

Anna's loneliness, the possible lack of attention of her husband contributes to the love that has arisen among them. What began as madness and the impotence of not being together for all this to be considered adultery has become that communion, that incomprehensible and unalterable ideal that is love.